The Raw and the cooked: pulling apart Sony's Raw compression

Raw compression won't be apparent in every image, but there are circumstances in which it risks undermining what should be a great image. Photo by Rishi Sanyal

Update: September 15, 2015: Sony has announced that the a7S II will have the option to shoot uncompressed Raw, with firmware being rolled out for some existing models, including the a7R II used here, later.

A Raw file is a Raw file, right? Well, not exactly. Lately, there's been a lot of talk (and a lot of anger) about the compression Sony uses in its Raw files. Compressed Raw files aren't uncommon, but they're usually compressed in a way that retains all the original 'raw' data from the sensor. Or, at least, all the information that's visually meaningful.

Instead Sony has, for several years now, chosen to apply non-optional lossy compression to its Raw output. This isn't likely to be an issue for many users, since the impact is generally quite small, but as the company shows its ambitions in the high end market, with the launch of the a7 series and a dedicated support system for professionals, the impact on image quality deserves a little scrutiny.

What exactly is going on with Sony's Raw files, and what might the potential impact be? The compression system has been investigated and detailed by Iliah Borg and Alex Tutubalin, and we've tried to distill their findings. It's important to keep this in perspective, though: in many circumstances you won't see this impact or encounter the limitations it can impose.

What's happening?

Sony's compression process has two parts, and each of the two aspects have a different impact on the Raw files. The first step applies a compression curve to the data. This is a bit like a tone curve and is used to map the 14 bits of captured data down to an 11-bit space.

Although this part of the process is lossy, a well-designed compression curve has little to no impact on image quality. This is because although shot noise makes up a decreasing proportion of the captured data in bright regions, the actual magnitude of the noise increases. This means it doesn't make sense to retain all the information about bright regions of the images, since a lot of that information will just be recording the subtleties of the noise.

Ideally, then, you can get away with a lot of compression in bright tones so long as you preserve increasing amounts of information at the dark end of the file. Unlike the (optional) compression curve Nikon uses, Sony's doesn't fully exploit this phenomenon, meaning that some useful data is lost, as well as some of the noise. This will, theoretically, reduce the dynamic range available in the files.

Stage two

Sony's Raw compression then has a second stage, where the image is divided up into a series of 16 pixel stripes for each color channel. Rather than recording a separate value for each of these pixels, the Sony system records the brightest and darkest value in each stripe, and a series of simple notes about how all the other pixels vary from those extremes. These notes are recorded using fewer bits than it would take to record the actual pixel values and it's this step that appears to cause most of the problems.

When there's not much difference between the brightest and darkest pixel, the system is able to describe the scene pretty well. However, as soon as you have a big gap between bright and dark, the 7-bit values used to note the differences aren't sufficient to precisely describe the original image information.

The localized, second step of the compression means detail around high-contrast edges isn't correctly recorded and this inaccuracy becomes increasingly apparent if you try to adjust those regions of an image.

This image was created from a Raw file that had been underexposed, to retain highlight detail, then pushed 5EV when it was processed. This may seem extreme but it can be useful to be able to selectively brighten areas of an image, without the risk of revealing lost data.

This imprecise recording of the original image data leads to artifacts in stripes around high-contrast edges in the photos. These errors can become even more pronounced if you increase the brightness or contrast in those regions when processing the files.

14-bit and 12-bit readout

To compound matters, several Sony cameras we've tested appear to switch their sensor read-out from 14 bits to 12 bits in certain modes: further reducing the amount of dynamic range that the camera ever captures, even before the effects of the compression process are brought into play. Continuous shooting, Bracketing and Bulb exposure modes will all push most Sonys down to 12-bit capture mode, which is then subjected to the two stage compression.

Conclusion

These approaches probably made sense in consumer-grade cameras, back in the days where processing power and storage space came at a significant premium. However, on a camera as expensive as the a7R II, which is likely to be used for quality critical shooting, it's hard to justify clumsy compression that can, depending on the image, throw away data you were expecting to have access to.

Overall, the effects of this compression aren't often visually significant. Their impact should mostly be understood as a reduction in processing latitude, since it tends only to be when you push and pull the Raw files that the missing data becomes visible. The compression curve throws away more shadow data than would be ideal: reducing dynamic range. There's a further reduction if you shoot in a mode that drops the camera into 12-bit readout mode. Meanwhile, the localized compression of tonal differences only has an impact near high-contrast edges.

And it's not just heavily-pushed images that start to reveal the lost data: this is a straight out-of-camera JPEG file (shot with DRO Auto), still showing stripes extending from a high-contrast edge. It looks still worse in a gently processed Raw conversion.

It's worth noting, though, that the impact of this process is lessened in the company's higher pixel-count bodies, since a 32-pixel stripe will be a smaller proportion of the a7R II's 40MP images than it would in a 12MP image from the a7S.

It's quite possible to shoot for years and never notice the impact of these design choices Sony has made, but they do add up to mean that you can't access the full capability of the camera. Most people shoot Raw precisely because they want to preserve the maximum possible processing latitude and keep their creative options open. Raw compression isn't the end of the world by any means, but it throws away a little bit of a camera's capability, which might be a little hard to swallow if you've paid multiple thousands of dollars for a cutting-edge camera.

This article is based on the investigative work of Alex Tutubalin and Iliah Borg, creators of LibRaw and Raw Digger.

Comments

I own an Alpha 850 which is admittedly aging. But it gives me a choice between RAW and compressed RAW. I've been using the cRAW format not knowing that it's lossy. Thanks for alerting me to the issue!I will not consider moving to the a7R II as long as the issue isn't solved at the root: either a loss-less compression or uncompressed true RAW.A solution in the converter is no true solution.

So, basically, you were happy with your pictures, but now good people helped you to realize you have an ISSUE...

Hans, I can't even tell whether what you wrote is a joke, or an honest post -- it's your first here, after all. If you were a troll, with a known history around these parts, I'd write something like "Do you also need help with identifying your purpose in life? I can recommend a cult, or two..." But you might be a good man, after all, so I do not want to offend you. :)

But... seriously... think about what you wrote. Do you really need a solution to a non-existent (for you) problem?

1) Incompatibility with Canon flashes and minimal availability of compatible flashes and radio triggers.

2) No false color exposure guide, which is a natural for any electronic viewfinder. This is also a common FS7 video camera complaint.

3) The RAW compression. BTW, it doesn't hold that the high pixel count hides the issue. Many shots, especially telephoto shots in sports events or wildlife, are heavily cropped. These shots may be in APS-C mode already. And the problem will be common in night shots with some illuminated areas and day shots with a bright sky.

The latter two are software fixes, although the RAW format change also requires a change to editing software to add support.

Yeah I can't see this will be an upgrade from my exist A7 to that until that is sorted out. It not just that raw compression problem. There are report of hot pixel problem in long exposure shots. So really the confident level is pretty low when trying to upgrade. I rather be comfortable with staying with A7 until that problem is sorted.

What incompatibility with Canon flashes? My canon flash works fine on my a6000 using a HC-511 adapter on the hotshoe. also look at Phottix Mitros+ flashes for Canon and Odin triggers. works great with Sony cameras and Canon flashes.

I love so many features of the a7R II. I am considering switching from my Canon DSLRs to the Sony. I agree that the visual impact is small, but nonetheless, it is unnecessary. Lossless compression is the norm for pro-level camera, which I think is clear from all the good and the ridiculous comments below.

Not being in any particular need to switch right now, I'm likely to wait to see if Sony will react and fix it. If they would explain why it is there, and why they will never or can never change it, I would still consider the switch.

Of course, if while I wait, Canon can fix their very visible reduced dynamic range, or can get an eye focus working like the Sony, i may not have to switch.

After examining the details of ARW, the Sony RAW format, I am convinced that it is a very good RAW format. In particular, I don't think a lossless RAW is absolutely necessary.

The ARW format has the following strengths:

1) High efficiency, just one byte per pixel2) effective resolution of 13 bits for small levels3) great simplicity, which allows on-the-fly encoding4) virtually invisible artifacts, except in very special cases when artifacts are provoked by a heavy/forced PP

The criticisms of the Sony RAW format are concentrated on item 4, and these criticisms only appeared after a few experiments revealed the visibility of artifacts in underexposed images of startrails that were submitted to strong pushing. It is very important to note here that the artifacts always appeared in combination with noise, which became highly visible because of the pushing.

I believe it is possible to make virtually invisible any artifact due to the compression used in the RAW files. It is not necessary a new lossless RAW format or a new firmware for Sony cameras. What is needed is just a BETTER RAW converter!

The key word here is VISIBILITY. Photography is a visual art, so what is not visible, or may not become visible, doesn't effectively exist in photography.

Technical Details The RawDigger article is used as a reference for the terms and concepts I use next:

The new RAW converter should detect the blocks prone to produce artifacts. This can be done from the knowledge of DataSpan and analysis of the pixels with values next to Min. When a block prone to artifacts is found, dithering is used to randomize the pixel values. The dither amplitude should be less than or equal to the rounding error to avoid image degradation. The net effect of dithering wouldl be the transformation of the original artifacts into random textures of very low visibility.

An improved RAW converter would benefit all Sony cameras, including those already discontinued. In addition, that RAW converter could be used to convert, without noticeable artifact, images that have already been captured. A new lossless RAW format brings none of those benefits.

I can honestly say that 'heavy / forced pp' as you have somewhat negatively described it is a totally acceptable and common procedure among us who earn our living from photography. In fact it is why I switched from Canon to Sony to have that ability. If I didn't need to do that on a regular basis I would still be using my Canon gear! It is rather annoying when people keep posting in defense of Sony as if to push the images in software is something wrong and we are bringing on these problems ourselves!!I only ever shoot in manual mode so I know exactly how far I am exposing in any direction and it is with an end goal in mind that I do this to overcome contrast and exposure issues in environments where I cant take lighting. If you never have to deal with these situations that's fine you won't have a problem with your images but trust me there are plenty of working pros who do and the compression is not acceptable.

rrccad, If I didn't miss something, in my understanding the input space range is 14 bits nominal, but the least significant bit is discarded so that the resolution for low-level signals drops to 13 bits. Furthermore, in practice, the various noises always present (shot noise, read noise, etc.) degrade the low-level signals so the effective bits can be even less. It is better to take the claims of manufacturers with a grain of salt.

Christo,My proposal is to modify the RAW converter so to make artifacts invisible. It is not a criticism of photographers who use heavy pushing.

The compression artifacts are visible unless you only want 11stops of DR. You can't fix the raw convertor unless you get it to paint a pretty picture where there is insufficient data. Slow, inaccurate and totally ridiculous when you could simply not screw up the data in the first place.

Sony truly need to update their converter program it is ages old since 2013 and not updated since. Why not keep updating? I guess Sony lost interest in developing the software like what Nikon done to Capture NX.

My guess is they're addressing the performance bottleneck between sensor and SD card. Compressing the image means less data to buffer while the processor waits for slow SD card writes, which translates to longer periods of burst shooting before having to wait for the buffer to clear.

If they're trying to solve slower FPS due to bigger file sizes, why not add an option for 14bit RAW when shooting landscapes or slower subjects and then adding an option for compressed files for faster FPS when shooting action? Nikon gives you choices. Those choices may not increase FPS, but it does increase the buffer.

Quite clearly a fix isn't going to be free, its going to have a price, not a financial price, but a performance penalty, increased storage requirements, slower burst rates, possibly reduced functionality.

Are people REALLY happy to accept these costs when you can't actually see the problem artifacts????

The only noise here, is from canikon shooters desperate to believe they aren't using obsolete kit.

I still like the camera, been using it for over a month now, I had one of the first in the UK. However, on two occassions, the lossy compression has been a big issue.Nothing like as minor as the dpreview samples. Affecting the image in over 100 places. I've messaged Richard and Rishi but not heard back. I'm happy to supply them the RAW file. What you need is1) an image with a lot of detail (the image is compressed to 1MB per 1MP whatever the content of the image) 2) an image with a lot of high contrast edges (because of the bizarre compression method)The moon image only has a handful of high contrast edges and most of the image is sky. It doesn't show anything like a worse case.

As an advanced close-up photographer, I understand your point, but don’t like the slow drift of your post that most photographers won’t notice it. There are those of us who do notice and need a lossless raw format and not have it processed or semi-processed for us. I bought the Sony A7r and the A7s and returned both for reasons there is not enough room here to detail.

I will consider the A7rII when they offer a lossless raw option, and while they are at it, give us some batteries that last longer, and make sure that all levels of EVF focusing are sharp. Meanwhile, my Nikon D810 is doing the job.

I'm just watching the reviews from actual owners. I likely would not notice the lossy compression, but I do shoot a lot of high contrast images at high ISO and often crop severely. I can buy spare batteries, but there is no solution for lossy compression if it affects a image.

Its likely that < 5% will notice, but its one of the issues to consider. The comments on evf focusing when magnified are also making me wonder.

Let me put it that way: So far all the examples were shot at low ISO with super high contrast edges, meaning the dark parts are in the deep shadows in unprocessed images.

Raising the ISOs means the read noise is slowly creeping through the shadow parts to the visible parts of an unprocessed image. Because of how the compression works it will come to the point where the read noise surpasses the shadow level which is needed to have a "too big" of a contrast step to be even able to get the pixel garbage you see in the examples.

I did some concert photography with an A7 and a lot more with an A7s. Due to its ISO capabilities it should be more suspectible to this kind of problem, but so far I have yet to see any obvious artifacting caused by the compression. Granted, I don't push shadows like mad, either. Also, super-harsh contrast edges do exist, but highlight vs. darker midtone / "almost not shadow" is not enough to break it.

D810 - what about mirror and shutter vibrations? This might smear out finest detail when using medium to slow shutter speed (1/250 to 1/4 sec), and this will affect every part of the frame. For macro/long telephoto/telescopes I prefer mirrorless with electronic first shutter curtain. It makes a difference.

"Dude, this is 3.200 USD camera that is crippled by the problem Sony cameras had for years. Sony did nothing to fix it."

Crippled? That seems a bit harsh for a camera that is capable of such superb IQ and only shows visible artifacts very infrequently under certain circumstances. But if that is still unacceptable to you, then by all means, do not buy the A7RII.

OK - point well made. But can anyone show me a camera that is perfect? There are none - they are all a set of compromises. I've only had my A7Rm2 a week today - but i love it - artifacts, warts and all. Its got the largest VF out there on a FF camera. Its quieter than the DSLRs i tried, and about 1/2 their weight. No micro phase calibrations anymore - Nearly every shot i've taken has been sharp with this camera, in manual mode or AF. I've joined a really cool gallery recently, i'm the only photographer, and i've discovered that none of the painters is concerned about the artifacts with their paint strokes. I know that is a shocking fact for some.

I hope that Sony will fix this problem, but i won't be returning this camera, its too dang good in so many other ways. There is no other FF mirrorless camera out there. I shot with a Nikon D4 in a blind before i bought the Sony. And the racket from the shutter was so loud this stellar jay looked up to find the noise.

Dude, the D4 is a $6000 camera that has had a noisy shutter for years - Nikon has done nothing till this year to quiet shutters on the D800. I shoot a lot of dress rehearsal plays for the organizations. Noisy shutters are a turnoff, yet Nikon and Canon have done little on this issue. You say my camera is crippled. I've been out shooting several times and not had a problem processing the photos - of course i wasn't pushing it 5 stops.

Sad to realize what agony is sparked by the fact that some of us consider the a7R2 a useful tool. Happily, your choices contrary to my own cause me no pain.I would really like to have an uncompressed raw option, but won't lose sleep over it.

The question above about whether noise could cause deterioration of IQ. Noise is an indication that the cam. body is vibrating. That means that the mirror is also vibrating. Both the D800 and A7R were affected. There were complaints about blur on both cameras - a friend of mine sold his D800 because he was disastified with the clarity, then bought a D750 that he's been very happy with. Dpreview did a article on shutter shock in both cameras. Nikon and Sony both did compensatory design actions in follow-on cameras. Sony for example put a carbon fiber shutter in the A7RII. Nikon put an Electronic First Curtain shutter in some D810 version. Whether blurriness will show up is dependent on shutter speed as well. I love the camera, wish it had better RAW, but each of us have to make choices.

@Philnw2: I've used the 5D3 for a good while, and the quiet/silent mode is maybe not super-silent, compared to the normal shutter it is a massive difference already. Infact, I had a few people ask me already whether I took the picture or not (granted, in a not exactly super-silent environment). And Canon progressed from there (supposedly 6D, I know from first hand experience from 5Ds), so saying that they didn't do anything is not 100% correct.

Granted, the silent mode on A7rII and A7s (I own one) is another level of silent, but it also doesn't come for free, so there is that.

@AksCT: In the embedded world you will find a lot of compression going on mainly to lower the data bandwidth for example for I/O traffic, among other things. For example, it is much faster to load a compressed "application", unpack it and then execute the thing than loading the uncompressed binary, just because of the limitation of the I/O device you are loading the application from.

Sony's compression gives you a certain 50% less data regardless of the input, which is actually very good. On top of that the compression is super-fast compared to other compression methods. That can lower costs for things like I/O (doesn't need to be that fast), RAM and whatever else is affected by that, also lowering the cost of the device as such and maybe using up less power and thus lasting a bit longer than with more powerful components.

Don't you guys get it. Sony knew there would be a stink over compression. But in typical Japanese fashion, they didn't want to bring out a camera that would completely and utterly embarrass their esteemed countrymen in the camera business. So they politely decided to leave compression in so Nikon and Canon wouldn't completely 'lose face' as they compete.

Seriously guy this has gone too much conversation and too much worry about RAW compression, its time to move on guys. I have had not yet seen one of problem in A7 with normal editing and no extreme editing at all. I don't intend to do so stupidly underexpose to use shadow to recover so massively, its not natural to me for photography. Software also has it limit too you do clearly know.

I have an A7R, and A7 ii and an A7R ii and I see artifacts on images on a weekly basis for shoots for clients. Extreme editing as you call it is because we no longer need to do two exposures and blend them in photoshop but rather take one exposure and use the recovery tools in Capture One / Lightroom etc to speed up the workflow.Yes, the conversation has gone on a lot but there is no response from Sony on this issue so are we all to just shut up and put up??

Exactly. One could say the 'extreme editing' is having to blend multiple exposures together. Certainly more difficult than moving a couple of sliders in my book...

And, yes, blending multiple exposures where the longer exposures are from longer focal plane exposures (not just increasing ISO) will always be better, b/c of shot noise, but it often surprises me that the same people who'll be proponents of Magic Lantern's Dual ISO will be critics of pushing shadows on single Raw files.

These people need to realize they're just different ways of skinning the same cat, for cameras with very low read noise anyway.

I don't see artifacts on my A7 and Nex 7 so far so not really commenting on artifacts. Or pointless for me to make discussion on it. I know Sony is stubborn the way they are and I reckon that they will continue to go on this track. We need like millions of people to make petition against Sony to make this happen. I can't see this will work with only few complaints about artifact unfortunately. So really its reviewer job to expose it for now as Sony will continue to ignore us. So it is good for us people like here to expose the problem usually newer camera had end up with a lot of artifact problem but it is now much more pronounce in newer A7RII the worst posterization I have ever seen in the sample.

Well I hope Sony will take this into account.It MUST be a disappointment for them that such a great camera is caught amidst such a controversy.And as this controversy also concerns the rest of their cameras, they might take action. Be it firmware, or newer hardware, depending on what's possible with current hardware...

After buying my A7 and subscribing to their online site 2 years ago, I've been asked and have filled 3 surveys regarding my expectations from their cameras... Lossless RAW is n01...

We still need to understand Sony's raw problems better than we do. Dropping down to 12-bit precision, posterization due to a tone curve, and bit loss due to the isochromatic 16px encoding -- all of these should only reduce the value of a pixel. Yet the worst effects seem to be brightened blotches in dark areas. Something else, or something more, has to be going on.

To test our (well, my) understanding of the effects of these bugs, I've hacked DCRAW so that it can apply them to any image; i.e. I can see what images out of a Nikon camera would look like if Nikon's raw formats also did these three changes to the data. And the artifacts do show up in bright regions, but not so much in dark ones.

My theory now: these artifacts show up in dark areas near saturated regions because Sony's raw format is exacerbating, via blocky posterization, the visibility of an optical effect and/or problems with full well leakage that brightens some pixels that should have stayed dark.

"My theory now: these artifacts show up in dark areas near saturated regions because Sony's raw format is exacerbating, via blocky posterization, the visibility of an optical effect and/or problems with full well leakage that brightens some pixels that should have stayed dark."-----------------------------------------------------------

If the artifacts had something to do with optical effectst they would have circular symmetry. However, the artifacts occur only in the horizontal direction (for camera in landscape orientation), affecting basically the vertical transitions and not the perfectly horizontal ones.

A bit of technical information for those who wonder "Why, oh why Sony??!!"

The compression algorithm that they used has a very important property of having constant compression ratio *and* directly addressable pixels. While the former is mostly a convenience, the latter opens up huge number of optimization opportunities.

For instance, to display enlarged view of a rectangle in the middle of the image, it is possible to only read (from RAW) only pixels of that rectangle (well, one would also read up to 30 extra pixels per line, but that's immaterial). With JPEG, or any other compressed RAW (or, say, WinRAR if you used it to compress your image...) you would have to decompress entire image before you could use any part of it.

BTW, I'm not saying that, for instance, enlargement should necessarily be done as described above; I'm saying it could be, and it *is* beneficial in some cases.

There is ETC, the Ericsson Texture Compression, that is used for many applications where it is necessary to address individual pixels. Chances are, your smartphone uses it to keep textures in the memory of 3D accelerator in compressed form -- the texture is never uncompressed as a whole, accelerator just picks individual pixels, as needed. Because those pixels are individually addressable, like with Sony's RAW compression.

(Hint: if you are using Android phone with some of the Nokia-provided navigation services on Yahoo and some other places, you *are* using ETC).

ETC's compression ratio is (IIRC...) 6:1, while JPEG's average compression is 20:1... And the quality can even be worse than JPEG, but the benefits are huge.

It's a real comfort to know that even though one may have paid $3200 for a camera whose only "raw" format is one that corrupts the data, those corrupted images have the potential to be viewed faster in a RAW-processing application if somebody were to exploit its one-byte-per-pixel property. Thanks! It's totally worth it.

"The compression algorithm that they used has a very important property of having constant compression ratio *and* directly addressable pixels. While the former is mostly a convenience, the latter opens up huge number of optimization opportunities."

vadims,

Do you think that has something to do with the apparent reluctance of Sony to offer a lossless RAW option?

> Do you think that has something to do with the apparent> reluctance of Sony to offer a lossless RAW option?

In a word, No. Not this feature. Because, for instance, pixels in uncompressed RAW files are as easily addressable.

What could have happened though is they could have implemented their lossy compressor in an ASIC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit): their algorithm is very well-suited for that because of its locality, as compression is done locally on individual tiny 32-pixel strips, w/o the need of "sliding window" (as in LZ77-type algorithms, used in PNG) or a dictionary (as in LZ78-type algos, e.g. in GIF). And ASIC is not something you can modify with a FW update.

Then again there is always a possibility that a company thinks they know better what their customers need... Canon and their refusal to make MLU accessible with at least a programmable button (while having a dedicated Direct Print button on 5D) comes to mind.

The RAW compression in hardware makes sense, but I note that criticisms of the Sony RAW format are relatively old and precede the launch of Sony 7RII, for example. So if Sony considered that a lossless RAW format is so important, Sony had plenty of time to design an appropriate ASIC for the current iteration of Alpha 7 cameras.

I suspect there may be some more fundamental issue involved, that only Sony knows what is. Perhaps Sony does not want to hastily offer an option for a lossless RAW compression that would harm the operation of the purely electronic cameras to come in the near future.

That would be amazing if Sony could implement an option for uncompressed RAW and in different resolution like Canon.

I was originally shooting with Nikon and Canon body's for ages until I made the move to shooting Sony. The View finder on the a99 just blew me away with the amount of Live View information it was displaying and at the time I was shooting with a Nikon D3 and D700.

With my Nikon's I would always shoot 12bit compressed RAW when doing event photography. My main concern was mixed lighting and we all know that you can white balance a RAW much better than a JPG.

When it came to Landscape/Architecture by default I would set my Nikon's to 14bit uncompressed as I need to pull as much shadow/highlight, tone and colour detail into one RAW which was shot at ISO100 camera on a tripod. That option gave me just that little bit more to play with when editing.

So to sum it up for me 12bit compressed for Event Photograph and 14bit uncompressed for absolute editing leeway.

Well said. The criticisms have mainly stemmmed from a minority of professional photographers or technical review sites who give me the impression they have all the answers in the search for the Holy Grail. Then the internet bloggers go on high alert, and as you say, the herd follows.

And what makes me laugh, if it weren't a serious matter enough, is all the fuss over Sony's 11+7 RAW (which I have to confess is utterly meaningless to me) arose because someone took a 31 minute (!) exposure of star trails, and found the proverbial needle in a haystack. So if star trails are your forte, by all means don't buy a Sony. However, for the rest of us judge the camera on how it suits your particular shooting style/habits. Be your own man, or woman, and stand by your own assessment, not what someone else says you should avoid.

I suppose I'm now going to be attacked for supposedly being a Sony fanboy.

There ARE some of us who are using Sony cameras for Astrophotography, where the camera(s) were purchased first, and then AP was added to the mix. With the wide dynamic range, very long exposure times (several minutes, and having to use Bulb), it would benefit some of us to have this RAW 'Star Eater' problem taken care of it. Does it effect my normal, day to day shooting, Not that I'd really notice, but it does have an effect on when I'm shooting a galaxy, or a nebula, or a star cluster. Please don't consider this an attack on you, it is not. I started out with a Minolta camera back in the mid 70's and have stuck with it. Right now, Canon would better suit my AP needs, unless I went to a dedicated imaging CCD (with Sony chips, of course), but I WOULD like the full potential from my sensor, not to have it arbitrarily cut short, even if it was just a menu option.

The whole reason for wanting 42 megapixels beside the ability to crop is to be able to display large prints. If large prints then show artifacts it becomes a pointless exercise. Do you have an A7R ii and if so have you never had the need to push your images to save the highlights or have you bought a high res camera just to shoot jpegs for low res web use??? If you don't understand what the fuss is about that just says it all, you just don't understand what the fuss is about.

No, I don't own the A7RII, but I believe I covered your response in my post by suggesting the camera be judged on one's own shooting style habits. Naturally, if one's needs fall outside the Sony's operating envelope, then don't use it. But for many others, it doesn't pose any problems for them. Are they wrong?

And with respect, your reply shows the usual ignorance of someone who knows better. You know absolutely nothing about my skills as a photographer of 56 years standing, and yet you presume so much.

I've shot star trails and a whole lot of astro/nightscape photography with the A7S, A7R & A7R II and have yet to have this "problem" actually show up. Not too sure what everyone is going on about!? Now if someone was saying the A7 II doesn't have as good a low-light performance as the others, I'd totally agree!

It would be nice if Apple or Google started to build MILC bodies that you can order with a Canon, Nikon or Pentax mount. It seems like the Japanese manufacturers cannot get electronic cameras right, but they can make good lenses.

Why is anyone amazed that Sony screws up? All you have to do is pick up a Minolta Maxxum 7 or 9 to realize that Sony has absolutely no idea what they're doing. They don't make cameras - they make big Cybershots.

The Maxxums are a perfect blend of ergonomics and machine. Something that feels good and makes you want to shoot. A knob for every single feature. But with each model since Sony took over, they strip more and more. Get rid of the knobs. Get rid of the buttons. Menu diving is good! They have no idea how to make a camera for photographers. Most people don't realize because they've been fed crap for so long they think it tastes good.

The last straw was getting rid of the much superior iIso hotshoe for that abortion they put on the camera. That joke of a hotshoe. Sony's just trying to sell gadgets to well heeled customers. They don't respect any of their customers as real photographers. None of this is surprising.

My D700 had a pretty good sensor, and I did some nice work with it. But, the D800 was suppose to have better focusing, but mine didn't. Next, the D810 was worse. Highly incensed and furious at Nikon, and being uncomfortably past my 30 day return date, I called B&H anyway. Threw myself on their mercy. Asked if there was anything they could do to help me. Then, to my utter astonishment, they said 'we'll extend your return date. Just send it back.' Bought the a7RII with native lens, tested it out with Eye AF. Nirvana! It will focus on the most important eyes in priority order, weddings anyone. This is not to mention IBIS, a wonder for old hands and 42 meg sensors. I started shooting in 1969. So yah, I know cameras have had stabilization for a while now, but NOT my N-14-24,24-70,70-200,85,50,and135. So yes, I'm finding IBIS a wonder. OK, my point: It may have a few issues, but in spite of them, it profoundly blows N out of the water as an event camera! N. you had 45 years, it's over!

More Sony BS. Sony, Canon... it's as if there are no photographers or filmmakers involved in their product design. These companies need to clean house and bring some people on board who know what they're doing.

Sony has a history of undermining and bastardizing industry standards. Now that raw has meaning to a lot of image-gatherers, here comes Sony with a fraudulent interpretation of the term.

Canon may be way out in the weeds when it comes to their product line, but this Sony sham should decimate their credibility in the marketplace and earn stiff rebukes. They need to be called out on this hard and widely.

I really don't think Sony are in the head space of the professional photographer. I spent a fortune not to long ago on a medium format digital camera that was heavy, had bad auto focus in comparison, dreadful high iso, huge mirror slap, really slow write times - especially on very long exposures, weird battery issues in comparison (one for camera and one for back) and multiple times more expensive than the top end Canon and Nikon offerings at the time but all because it would give the best RAW output that was available. I currently own the A7R ii and think it is fantastic but to cripple the quality of the RAW is to grossly misunderstand the needs of many pros. Honestly, this camera is so so close to being the most perfect camera I have owned only to have some stupid decision that puts a dampener on everything!!

Richard Butler is doing the photographic community a great service by bringing attention to something that Sony should address ASAP if it wants to play in the Major League. As things stand, the a7R II will likely remain a consumer/prosumer toy, falling far short of its majestic potential (think Alexander the Great in a wheelchair).

Some of you have pointed out that lossless RAW is overkill. Then don't use it. For many, 42MP is overkill. Then shoot at a lower resolution or use a different body, if you wish. For me, auto-focus is overkill; I never use it. But I know many others who depend on it, so I don't mind it being there.

You can always disuse what you have but you can never use what you don't have. And that, my friends, is the crux of the matter.

I have no idea why they don't do anything to modify it, either. Is it a hardware issue, or a firmware issue? If it's firmware, it should be an easy fix.I replied to a poster above, and in addition to 'every day' photography, I also do 'Astrophotography', and at that, the 'Star Eater' issue IS a problem. But, I've also found that the Sony .ARW format does not play well with some Astrophotography software. So, in addition to losing data, Sony also prevents users from integrating with some forms of software that an Astrophotographer would use, further hindering the User/Sony relationship. I mean, I hate to say it, but I'm actually looking for a Canon to do AP with, not because I want one, I don't, but because it works and doesn't have these issues.

I would like to understand if this compression is part or all of the reason why Sony sensors have a reputation for lower noise.

When I see noise in dark areas, it's really just slight pixel-to-pixel variations where the chroma variance is too great. If you blend or average the chroma values of the adjacent pixels, this noise pattern will mostly go away.

The same thing occurred to me and I would be surprised if Sony didn't avail themselves of all kinds of processing"benefits" that would cook reviews too. Besides, DCT compression lowers high frequency components which naturally reduce noise. Regardless, noise specs off this sensor can't be trusted nor in any way compared to the raw output of competitor's cameras.

My Sony A700 that I bought in 2008 has a setting to select RAW or cRAW. RAW is uncompressed and cRAW is lossy compressed. I gather that Sony has eliminated that option from their cameras? Actually, for me personally I would like to have 2 options: lossless compression or lossy compression (if the lossy compression created significantly smaller files than lossless compression). I used cRAW with my A700 because the result was usually around 12.5mb and uncompressed was 18mb.

Perhaps this can be corrected with a firmware update? I wouldn't think it would be very problematic for 98% of images made with the camera, and even when it shows in a small percentage if photos, it wouldn't be that noticable. That being said, the highest quaity of RAW file should be accessible, especially at the high price being demanded for this camera. I just don't understand why Sony would make shch a marketing errror.

There is no marketing error. its a company /management DECISION. they have a reason and only they know what it is its an inside thing that they of course cant tell us why as it may damage possible patents or future products or existing relations with vendors or future plans. Just go out and shoot. life is too short.

If one wants to be a purists, RAW truly does not exist If one defines it by "Throwing data away". The act of using an A/D converter to digitize an analog signal " Throws data away". Anyway the Sony RAW process is a result of engineering decisions and tradeoffs which al manufactures do. It is unfortunate that we have the technology and tools search look at and magnify . Based on the amount of technology and efforts Sony has shown since the acquisition of Minolita they are probably working on these corner case observations. Probably not a firmware fix but down in ASIC design/ code.

Is there anyone here that reads Japanese or is familiar with the Japanese photography community? There seems to be enough negative feedback over this issue at least as far as the English speaking pro and prosumer community is concerned that one would think that Sony corporate is getting enough heat to do something about it. However, if the Japanese speaking photography community is less concerned about it, then it may not get the attention DPR readers assume it will get from all the energy they are devoting to it.

Remember this is NOT a new issue, looks like Sony have compressed RAW for some time. What has changed is that they're now targeting pro's more and more, so its becoming a more critical matter, but if I were looking at Sales figures would I perceive the problem as big as some on here are claiming? Probably not...

I'm not equating sales figures with gear quality. I'm equating sales figures with business decision making, something Sony will pay more attention to rather than some over excited article comments.

In terms of targeting professionals, of course Sony have done that before, but with different versions of the same body. My point was they are now seriously targeting professionals. Evidence being 5 new FF bodies in less than 2 years, several pro grade lenses including 'proper' Zeiss ones (I await being told they are not pro grade - sigh) and now a seriously expensive FF body. The more they target pro's the more they need to address this issue (apparently).

> The more they target pro's the more they need to> address this issue (apparently).

I would agree with that.

But that's only because things that I'd do if I were a pro photog (and I'm not, BTW; just an avid amateur) are different to what I'd do if I were a Sony exec.

As a pro photog, I'd just happily use A7RII as it is. The issue is there, but it is so blown out of proportion that at some point some posts just started to crack me up... OK, enough of that.

As a Sony exec, I'd give it my full attention as it is starting to become a liability, even if for subjective reasons. Sony's imaging division has gained incredible momentum, so why lose *any* of that to the competition?

But... we're not exactly a club of execs here, are we? So I still find the magnitude of all this outcry hilarious.

Yes, and it's all relative or course. Any money spent fixing this issue is money not spent doing something else, depending on how much effort it is to remove this, that will also impact when it's fixed.

As you say though, we're not execs and you have to look beyond the hyperbole at the broader picture. More broadly speaking the camera has received very good reviews (even from those that have done significant analysis on this issue such as Diglloyd). It's selling well and as far as I can see it takes fabulous, detailed images.

But that's your opinion, your personal view isn't it? I really dislike the way that some on these forums state their opinion as fact... you can say 'I guarantee' or 'I swear on my life' but its still just your, one person's, opinion, if it is a fact show me, post data... how much has it eroded sales by? why would they be better of fixing this than say AF speed? What is the cost / benefit or NPV for the investment? Show me the user data you have access to...

This then is the problem with the term 'gear quality' its massively, almost entirely subjective, just read these comments. That's why I use the term 'business decision making', it will of course include Sony's own view of 'gear quality' but also things like sales figures, reliability, dealer feedback, comments such as this.... etc. etc...

...and that was my original, 'original' point, I don't think they'll decide to fix it just because of what's written on here, no matter how over the top. DPR the home of opinion as fact... :)

Thing is what you call my "personal view" includes seeing weakened colour in almost all Sony raw files over the last few years. The files are certainly better if one is using absolutely the optically best Zeiss lenses.

But Canon and Nikon with good, but optically weaker than Zeiss, lenses don't have this problem.

And then put a good Zeiss on a Canikon and the results are even better. But Canon and Nikon don't compress raws as the standard method of operation.

I can't speak to Sony's sales hit from making these choices, but only speaking for myself, I'd certainly never have purchased an A7 or A7R because of both colour and the loud mechanical shutter.

Better quality gear is not subjective.

Sony chose to ship many of the Nex models with the most infuriating menus possible, and this is when other manufacturers were doing a much better job across their lines.

No, Sony may not fix it solely because of comments at DPR, but this DPR essay is an example of the objections.

The comments on this story have become a depressing swamp of ignorance. DPR, please publish a basic tutorial on the distinctions between (1) uncompressed data, (2) losslessly compressed data, (3) visually lossless image data compression, and (4) Sony's weird 16px block encoding. These are not hard concepts.

I'm afraid there is no use in education, exapixel.-For some reason, people are using really basic reasoning to make huge assumptions. The reality is that there isn't much loss, and my experience tells me that Sony knows about this and wants to use lossy compression because of how it makes their output look.

When you have purists in any profession, everything gets muddled by massive exaggerations and really strange conspiracy theories.

The forum users appear to believe that Sony could or would "fix this" in firmware. There will be no fix. Nothing is broken except the herd following itself, talking about how we need to be freed from the bondage of compression, and how Sony is making their cameras unusable somehow simply because they compress their raw files.

Misinformation stereotypes abound here. I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain memory cards. People just see one specification and base all their reasoning on one spec number.

You surely know that WinRAR uses lossless encoding. WinRAR only managed to significantly reduce file size because the NEF file has high internal redundancy. Obviously, when Nikon designed the lossless NEF format, Nikon didn't have the slightest concern about trying to reduce the size of the giant files its cameras create. This is inexcusable from my point of view.

The D810 has four possible compression settings. One of them is "completely uncompressed". That is what your file uses. You are complaining about a completely uncompressed raw file being large and easily compressible. Why is this so hard.

The problem for me is how all the cattle following eachother have jumped to the bizarre conclusion that Sony is doing this on purpose for space or write-speed or something.

People keep asking why Sony doesn't give choices. There is a choice. Don't buy Sony! But if you do buy Sony, then understand that their way of doing things is to compress the files. If you don't like how Sony does things, then buy their Sony sensor in a different brand camera.

Why are people so obvious and so easily controlled. If I was going to be upset at Sony, it might be that they haven't invented a wireless eyecup that I could wear over my eye without having the camera's EVF upto my face. Where's that? How come Sony hasn't made my camera more useable in this way? Stupid camera company is ruining my life by not having this and other innovative features for me to use with my photography.

It's so bad that I'm going to sell all my gear and take pictures with disposable film cameras that don't have raw or jpeg!

I don't think that it is a big deal. Previous to the article, we were just fine with their cameras. After the report, people are acting like Sony not only knows about it, but that they are doing it on purpose just to mess with people.

They are using the compression levels and other factors that are only known to Sony to change every single bit of the light you get and make it what they want.

That's fine to me. I accept that artistic representation because a raw, flavorless one is actually more difficult to render in artistic ways. The blank slate you request is actually more limiting than you might really desire.

Moreover, this is just a nonsense article. I really don't get this article. It's just made to anger people and rile them up. There is nothing different from this than there would be from Fox news.

The imagery looks fine to me. It looked fine before this crazy nonsense and it looks fine to me now.

Why doesn't Sony have so far the option of a lossless RAW format? Most critics say that this is just a Sony error, but the question is not so simple. To try to understand better, I did an experiment. I took the RAW files from DPR Studio Scene for Sony 7RII and Nikon D810, and compressed them with WinRAR. The results were as follows:

WinRAR is a lossless compression, so the RARs files contain the same information as the RAWs from camera.

Surprisingly, WinRAR managed to reduce to almost half the size of NEF file, but failed to appreciably reduce the size of Sony RAW. This shows that NEF is inefficient since it produces much larger files than necessary. There is room for a better lossless RAW coding. I draw the conclusion that a reason for Sony has been reluctant to use a lossless RAW coding is that the current processor technology does not allow high efficiency of coding.

Of course I compressed with WinRAR a lossless NEF file! So what? My point is that it proved NEF file carries a lot of redundancy inside, what means that the coding method used by Nikon for its lossless NEF is very inefficient.

Who says file size is not important because memories are getting cheaper in $ per MB, forgets that image files are getting bigger and bigger, so transfer speed remains a major bottleneck in camera design.

I guess Sony must already be thinking about cameras with purely electronic shutters, which will allow bursts of dozens or even hundreds of shots per second. Efficient coding of RAW files will be even more important than it is now.

I'm actually quite happy with the flexibility of NEF files from the Nikon DSLRs I've known, so I'll assume Nikon know what they are doing and accept the larger files they delivery, along with the potential for superior image quality from difficult subject matter.

I think all Frank is saying is that NEF is quite inefficient if a general-purpose lossless compression algorithm can reduce the size by a third. Since Nikon has a much better knowledge of the data stream than RAR does, it should be able to do even better than RAR. I assume the redundancy comes from keeping data aligned on byte or word boundaries for faster processing (e.g. they might store a 12-bit sample in two bytes, wasting 4 bits per sample, rather than storing two samples in three bytes without waste.

I agree, though, that the main question is why does Sony think it's acceptable to apply lossy compression to their RAW format, especially when it can lead to such ugly artifacts.

Frank, you didn't compress a lossless NEF, you compressed an uncompressed NEF. To prove that Nikon's lossless compression is inefficient, you need to perform your experiment on a NEF file shot with Nikon's lossless compression setting.

"To be clear, what I meant was that uncompressed NEF is an inefficient way of storing an image into a RAW format."

Really? Your whole original point was a claim that NEF was inferior to Sony's ARW, and you substantiated it by taking a NEF with *uncompressed* image data and whining about how big it was. Which it would not have been if it had been saved with any of the D810's three RAW compression modes. And now you're trying to save face by changing your claim to the utterly tautological "uncompressed data is inefficient"? How is that news? Jesus, I want a better Internet.

You may not have noticed that I used in my remarks the RAW files provided by DPR from its Studio Test Scene. And the only Nikon RAW files available for download are uncompressed NEFs . Maybe you do not agree with DPR, but obviously they consider the uncompressed NEFs as the most representative, for good or for evil, files of the NEF family.

As far as I know, just as Sony, Canon also does not use uncompressed RAW, what makes Nikon as the only major brand to use this type of RAW format in FF cameras.

"You compressed an uncompressed file and found out that it could be compressed...shocking"---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh My Gosh! Now it's my turn to be shocked! Didn't you know that there are uncompressed files that cannot be compressed? A file of random numbers is a case of incompressible file. Read Shannon to understand better. Or try this challenge:

Dude, you started with "I draw the conclusion that a reason for Sony has been reluctant to use a lossless RAW coding is that the current processor technology does not allow high efficiency of coding," and ended up at "To be clear, what I meant was that uncompressed NEF is an inefficient way of storing an image into a RAW format." All that you've proved is that you were blissfully unaware that Nikon has multiple RAW file compression options. Give it a rest, already.

"You may not have noticed that I used in my remarks the RAW files provided by DPR from its Studio Test Scene. And the only Nikon RAW files available for download are uncompressed NEFs."

And yet you used them to claim that Nikon's lossless compression is inefficient. You even referred to them as lossless NEFs, which only makes sense if you thought they were compressed. Why call an uncompressed file lossless?

The whole point of your argument was that by using the lossless compression of WinRAR, you proved that it was possible to significantly reduce the file size of the NEF. From this you drew the conclusion that Nikon's own lossless compression does a bad job.If you knew that the NEF was uncompressed, then what was the point of your argument? Of course you can reduce the file size of an uncompressed raw file by compressing it! You could do the same with an uncompressed Sony file, if they had provided you with one.

Its interesting how people are criticising Sony here, as if they have been the market leader for decades and have just released a sub-par product. Or maybe they have already started thinking about Sony in this way following the continued innovation in the last few years.

This raw compression issue has totally been over-blown. Sony improved the A7R camera in so many aspects that we rarely see from Canon and Nikon when they update their cameras.

This new camera has the worlds first BSI full frame sensor, innovative new AF system, best AF points spread, best Eye AF mode, can focus another brand's (Canon) lenses virtually as good as their native bodies, has the largest FF camera viewfinder, and its EVF as well. The body has been totally reconstructed, completely new 500k rated shutter, IBIS, even small but important features like minimum shutter speed and full electronic shutter were added.

Now lets find an area where Can/Nik still have some perceptual advantage and put innovators down.

4 EVF a huge disappointment after all the hype, both inside the fluorescent lighted shop and outside on the street. A shimmering headache inducing mess. The 5DIII viewfinder was heaven in comparison; as good as the viewfinder of my 810.

Yes. Shimmering (the in shop lighting?), and the blocky building up of the image as I moved the camera, composing a shot.And what's with this "what you see is what you get" nonsense? We're not going to look at our images through that EVF forever are we? We get something else to look at, not "what you see" through that EVF. Displays vary, and I'm not even speaking about printing.

A histogram overlay might be useful sometimes, but it does get in the way of viewing your subject.

Anyway, whatever happened to gauging your exposure by just metering off a sidewalk, experience, looking and assessing?

And that viewfinder will always be out of synch with what you're viewing your images with (ever tried synching the colour calibration of a Retina and an Eizo screen?), let alone what the rest of the world is viewing your images through.

If you ever get a chance check out a Fuji X-T1 or Olympus EM-1 viewfinder in the same shop inside. You will not see the same sort of lag as on the Sony. Which just shows things can be done better. Sony often seem too worried about the spec sheet though, i.e. look how big our viewfinder is rather than worry about the lack of lag it has in low light as that is not mentioned on a spec sheet.

Obviously they still have the same colour issues as the Sony compared to a calibrated monitor.

@Stu 5 - Sure Sony's EVFS aren't perfect but no worse than others, for example the XT-1's EVF has a major, major problem with banding under fluorescent lights in some modes, which was how the first one I tried was set. This is something I've never seen with a Sony to the same extent. FWIW the best EVF I've yet tried was on a NEX-6.

The indie problem is real and it's a major one for me, it actually makes the Mark II body shape a step back in my view - the older shape with the shutter button on top doesn't have this problem in my hands - that said so much else is better maybe the mk III will smash it ergonomically.

Well its all very good listing the sales spec sheet but if there are problems with the final output on a camera aimed and priced to win over the pro's then it is a problem. Especially when it could have been avoided quite easily. Bells and whistles are great and I love using this camera but when I see the artifacts on some of the images it just doesn't feel such a pro piece of equipment. If you take the lead from what a medium format digital camera is all about you will see what I mean. They are heavy, large, have rubbish auto focus in comparison, a huge mirror slap, untill recently terrible high iso, none of the bells and whistles and yet we would pay a fortune to own one because the RAW file it gives you is as good as you get!!

Raw should be just that - raw and unmolested. I wouldn't consider buying any Sony camera when they implement goofy stuff like this. You can rely on companies like Canon to provide a thorough, reliable implementation.

Not on a camera like this Rishi, and certainly not for the price Sony is asking for it. One can look past the overheating long take 4k video (Dave Dugdale said it shut down 3 times in a 30 minute shoot and he had to apologize to his clients), the battery life, the ergonomics. the repeated attaching / reattaching adapters. But this? Pass. Shame too as I loved my a7s.

RAW files don't entirely reveal sensor read-noise, RAW is already partially cooked. If you were to actually see read noise arriving directly from a sensor everyone's boat would be rocking. Only camera manufactures see that read-noise, and then take measures to deliver a RAW file they see fit.

Nikon's RAWs maybe more RAW than Canon BTW, the lesser res D810 files are larger than the larger res 5DSR's - and I'm sure they both use class-leading lossless compression.

I suspect as part of lossy RAW Sony dials-in more luminance and colour NR at their internal processing stage, you can never un-dial that, but you can dial it in with the Canon if you wish - at your processing stage.

A manufacturer could give us even more of what the sensor offers, but then we would have to do more work processing. This is what astrophotographers know who use specialised sensors, they process absolutely raw data, it's v.noisy, processing involving time-consuming stacking etc - but for them it's worth it.

Rishi Sanya can you explain when viewing the test chart under artificial light that it is the Sony A7rII that is running into problems with the chrome part of the paint brush (top left. Fanned out brush head) and the bright light reflecting off of it. Especially when viewing the Raw files. In fact even the Canon file retains more highlight detail.

Yes the glow around it and the loss of detail in the chrome as well. Completly blown. I though about it being the lens but then thought it is quiet a way into the frame to be so bad. Either way it is not good.

@Rishi,Aren't there multiple moving parts here?1) 13-bit ADC might not be enough bit depth for the newer better sensors. But probably not a big deal (and this is hardware)2) Tone curve might not be optimal. Nikon's lossy curve with more and smoother steps is better. But again, maybe not a big deal.3) 11+7 compression. This has bad worst case behavior and is probably the biggest issue.Bottom line: Sony doesn't appear to have the will to make the firmware and software changes needed to address these concerns.It's simple, but not enough, to adjust the camera firmware.The hard part is the Sony software that would then have to read the new and improved raw files.

Stu 5: Probably the lens. If Canon retains more highlights, it's b/c of lower sensor efficiency, which isn't a good thing, but is expected as it's not BSI like the Sony.

Bill: Absolutely I think Sony's throwing dynamic range away to quantization noise. I think even the D810 is doing that to a certain degree, as its pixel level DR is dangerously close to 14 (which means the ADC may be limiting).

As for tone curve, not sure I see the relevance as I make my own tone curve in developing a Raw?

It's the latter part of the 11+7 compression that is the issue. Nikon's former part (the compressing to 11 or 12-bit space) is much smarter as it perfectly takes advantage of the principle of shot noise to not overquantize noise in brighter tones, but doesn't sacrifice precision on the low end, like Sony appears to (unless the ADC actually is 13-bit, in which case it's the ADC that's the problem).

Our questions will be answered if Sony ever gets around to fixing this in a firmware update...

@Rishi,My main point is that it is not simple a firmware fix from Sony's point of view.I think they could do the firmware quite easily but unless they modify their software (Image Data Converter? Sony RAW Driver, etc.) it's only a partial solution.To do one without the other might be viewed as a bad business decision; driving Sony camera owners to other software (even though Sony's software is free).

Sony no longer uses IDC and instead now has a deal with Phase One's Capture One software.

In the earlier days when cARW was an option on the Sony cameras, it used to be an issue with the RAW editors to read the cARW files properly while the uncompressed ARW files were interpretted just fine. The developers, shortly afterwards, released an update that provided cARW support. Seeing that it was possible and didn't take long, I don't see it as much of a problem for developers to do the same if/when Sony chooses to give us that capability back.

And if coordinated with developers before releasing the update, RAW editors could be ready for the files before the firmware even becomes available.

Sony have the tendency to shoot itself on the foot always. when you see any products coming from sony, u can be as sure as the constellations stars in the skies that it will have one stupid flaw. One so significant that it blows your mind to think how Sony could have missed it.

just imagine this. You have a gf, she is a plain jane with say lack of appreciation for charity, fine, not exactly a flaw. Now picture this, you got a supermodel gf that has everything and IQ of 200, but guess what, she wanted to move in a lion as a pet. Now there is no reason to talk about plain jane, but a big reason to highlight the issue on the supermodel.Both are wife material in some ways and you can be happy marrying either, but one is just regrettably...silly.

Thumbs up to Sony for innovation. Imagine 15-20 yrs ago if somebody had said that Sony were going to be a major player in the photography market, you would have laughed them out of the room. Even if they had just kept to developing sensor technology, they would still be a big player, as the amount of their sensor used can testify....but...I really do think Sony are missing the plot with RAW compression. I'm not sure what it's trying achieve. Speaking personally, I would always want to have the option to shoot in an uncompressed format..if nothing else to have the maximum latitude to correct all those shooting mistakes I make ;)

Thing of it is, I don't understand why Sony doesn't update the tech. to match sensor developments. (very odd). Though someone recently mentioned(in another forum) that the issue is specific to the A7R II in that it doesn't have the battery capacity to cope with uncompressed RAW. And so Sony opted to keep their high compression scheme so as to meet the prerequisites needed to keep the A7R II viable.

I think it was 5 articles about this camera which were often highly enthusiastic before this 'elephant in the room' about an issue that was already known about. I understand the staff obviously enjoyed their experience but the more excitement i see from reviewers the less professional they feel. Everything about the early articles said huge gamechanger which it really cannot be unless it has no big flaws. 80% of this camera looks awesome which is great for occasional use or non reliable professional use but issues like this will stop many serious users considering it.

And meanwhile with 6 articles about this camera there are only a couple about the latest and greatest Canon flagship. I don't know if this is reviewer preference or whether Canon needs to up its schmoozing game (not a Canon shooter).

"huge gamechanger which it really cannot be unless it has no big flaws."

???

Gamechanger has nothing to do with flaws. Look at "gamechanger" products through the years and tell me they are not flawed:

TeslaIphoneGoogleFaceBook

Being a gamechanger and forcing the competition to wake up has nothing to do with flaws. Even gamechanger products are flawed. If any one product or service was perfect......well, that doesn't exist. So your argument is flawed.

Thematic: just because a commenter disagrees with your perspective doesn't mean they are *forgetting* anything, or in the case of another recent comment acting purely out of *spite*. These are your words not theirs. The poster may or may not know about 6 years of Sony progress as you say, but they clearly choose to make their assessment anyway, independent of what you think about them. Putting your words into other people's clear arguments is the most basic form of stick man argument and it's both obvious and lowers the tone of the discussion.

No, I get to define what I mean by gamechanger, not you. Gamechanger here for me means lots of people heavily invested in Nikon or Canon deciding to sell their old systems and switch. It's the tipping point where the benefits outweigh the costs for a majority of users, which would see the balance of sales make a big swing. Now doubtless lots of people on this site especially have done this, but nowhere close to as many as necessary. This is because this camera overall is not an upgrade to my D800E, it is slightly behind for my purposes. It does some things much better and some things worse, and overall for a still shooter not enough. For me to change entire system it would have to be far better to justify the cost. For some people it is. For the vast majority it isn't, so it won't break the duopoly.

Stay on topic? I'm done with you. You're an amateur troll who picks fights with sensible posts and then the second they reply to the fight rather than the issue you chastise for going off topic. In the world of logic I work in that's baby level, you probably think it's smart. Don't bother responding, you are now ignored and it won't be read.

So Richy, If a reviewer were to give equal time to the Canon 5Dsr, what would the topics of articles be? Ok, 50 Megapixels. I'm not a Canon guy, so help me out here. What is there to report about. I don't expect you to give me actual titles of articles just a single word identifying something that's changed been improved. Thanks

Well Joe I'm not a Canon guy either, but I think the flagship of the biggest camera seller probably deserves an article or two, even if they need to be critical. *Equal time* is a big ask, I wouldn't go as far as suggesting that, the Sony has several new features that are newsworthy. My understanding of the Canon is that it excels within a decent light shooting window, so maybe they could have a look at how to get the most out of landscapes for it regarding lenses/technique, in the same way as there were lots of D800 articles floating around the web when they pushed the MP to 36 and left lots of old standard lenses out of their depth.

Exactly. The former reviews were more "own opinion"-like and defensive than objective reviews.

Why does it not suprise me that Rishi is not the reviewer that wrote that article? Because he simply has the Sony glasses on. He wouldn't have come to this conclusion and would rather have understated the whole issue.

DPR articles are mostly technical analysis, like this one, which don't always cover actual shooting experience. Though there are articles about shooting 'experience', the authors are not professionals AFAIK that need to earn money by printing and selling the pictures taken every day. So there is a lot about technical details of the new sony but not so much to write about latest Canikon produtcs from a technical aspect. Still there is lot about real shooting experience like the reviews by Ming Thein (both the A7RII and 5Dsr) or Martin Bailey (5Dsr) just to mention some. While they don't dig into numbers and figures they just report how they *personally* as a *professional* experienced shooting with this new stuff. Very recommendable.

"Everything about the early articles said huge gamechanger which it really cannot be unless it has no big flaws."

That's a very odd perspective I completely disagree with.

"Why does it not suprise me that Rishi is not the reviewer that wrote that article? Because he simply has the Sony glasses on. He wouldn't have come to this conclusion and would rather have understated the whole issue."

This article, while written wonderfully by Richard, was borne out of many discussions between Richard and I after having researched the issue from reading Iliah Borg and Alex Tutubalin's excellent investigations, along w/ Dr. Martinec's work.

And perhaps you missed my article here that severely highlighted this issue, just like my moon shot here, which I suggested we use as a demonstration.

Also, to the OP who said my previous pieces were, while informative, too 'cheerleader-y' to be objective: thanks for indicating they were informative, but if I'm excited over what a technology brings for me as a photographer (I'm a photographer at heart, btw), I should curb that to... what... downplay the clear significance I see the technology bring to my photography?

Curbing my enthusiasm over things that are, comparatively speaking in the landscape of camera technology advancements, huge for my and certain types of photography would actually just be disingenuous, and would do the opposite of helping photographers.

If you want pessimism, just go read the daily world news and be done with it. :) This is a gear review site that is supposed to inspire & help you to use the best gear for your art.

In other words, I don't hype stuff just for the sake of hyping stuff. I do hype something that takes my candid photojournalistic portraiture from a 30% focus hit rate at F2 or brighter apertures to an 80% hit rate though. Or that removes my need to ever calibrate my lens for a certain subject distance, and focal length (not to mention the inability to do anything about miscalibrated focus points, or variation of optimal calibration based on environmental conditions like temperature). Or that removes my need to use filters for landscapes. Or that removes my need to ever have to manually select an AF point, which is too slow and cumbersome for fast paced, 'decisive moment' photography. Or... hopefully you get the idea.

Richi, no matter how many words you [i]italicize[/i], you still come off as very pro-Sony and perhaps not the most objective reviewer I've seen on here. You're one ahead of me as I can't even get my font TO italicize.

@ Thematic. I completely agree with your statement, but what Sony is bringing to the table isn't game changing. It may make Nikon and Canon review their thoughts regarding mirrorless technology, but the A7 will never have the sales to be a game changer, because it misses major check marks on key points that it's target audience feels are important.

Actually, there are aspects of the a7R II that are game-changing to me, as a photographer.

Not having to worry about focus accuracy of fast primes, and getting continuous eye AF are absolutely game-changing for my candid portraiture, event, people, wedding photography. I literally cannot shoot unpredictable subjects (for candid shots) at the speed I do with the a7R II w/ continuous Eye AF w/ a 5DS - it doesn't have the precision to track a subject's eye. At least a Nikon D810 does to an extent, but you still have to first 'tell' the camera where the eye is by initiating AF on it, and it still doesn't have the precision of the 399 small PDAF points on the a7R II.

Oh, and the spread of AF points on the a7R II.

It's fine to think the camera is or isn't a game-changer, but it's silly to discount the fact that for some people, for some types of photography, there are game-changing features.

I don't come to this website very often but when I do I find all of the talk is about why Sony isn't a real camera. Very strange!

This is a good article about a lot of things that really have no effect on the images taken by people on this site. If the photographers on this site spent as much time researching composition and color theory they wouldn't have to worry about this nonsense. But that would mean they would have to think which seems to be an issue..........

A musician doesn't have to think about music theory while he's playing because he's taken the time to study and practice what he learned. Wow! Are you that wrapped up in your gear that you can't understand that? I feel sorry for you.........and your sad little test charts!

How can you say it has no effect on the images taken by people on this site? As if you know their every picture? And who is to say they haven't already sorted their composition and colour theory and now want uncompressed RAW??

@HowaboutRAW A better comparison would have been with a composer thinking about music theory when he's composing. Which I imagine he does.

But the issue isn't as moot as tesch seems to think. That "moon and Space Needle" shot doesn't seem like an especially tricky exposure, but it's way too artifacty (which is a word, I've decided) to rank as stock-ready.

Great and well balanced article! RAW compression is actually significant. I'm a professional landscape photographer making and selling big prints and I always strive for stellar print quality. I have been loving the Sony sensor equipped Pentax 645Z which has rather insane DR with extremely low noise. By exposing for the highlights it is possible to pull shadow detail cleanly out of a single RAW exposure that was unthinkable only a few years ago. The A7rii has been promoted as a truly pro uber cam and as the low noise, high DR champ. But in the trenches with a gnarly high dynamic range situation the compressed RAW file will not deliver the advertized low noise or DR like the Z actually does. You can not expose for the highlights and push the shadows 4 or 5 stops and still expect to have clean shadows. I suspect that Sony's noise and DR claims are willfully misleading and should be asterisked with "most of the time". This is not a truly pro tool to trust a lifetime image to just yet.

@ldog, Why guess. Order an a7RII, go take your shots, make a big print and report back to us so we will know where it stands. If it doesn't perform, send it back. Compared to the 645Z it's only a measly $3200. You can do it, most if not all of us can't do this comparison. We don't have your kind of money. Anyway, I've been mad at Pentax ever since they reduced the size of my 6x7 to 645. And to add insult to injury, that puny little sensor in the 645 is nowhere close to true 645.

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